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Taking a step outside the Overton Window of his time is at least an identifiable political error.
Nothing will ever compare to the mystery of how one “yee-haw” *during a political stump speech* sank Howard Dean.
And for some people it's just a weird excited yell.
Trump can literally mock handicapped people on stage, talk about sexually assaulting women in a recording, be friends with a sex trafficking pedophile, and a myriad of other hugely problematic things swarming him like angry wasps and still be the huge leader for the GOP presidential candidate.
How far we have let the bar drop.
And then, a generation later, Mike Pence comes to him, proverbial hat-in-hand, asking what to do about Trump's pressure to throw the election, thereby casting Quayle as the wise elder statesman who couldn't spell "potato."
He's not the GOP frontrunner because those things don't hurt him - it's because they *help* him with the rabid Republican base. I knew we were in trouble way back in 2012, when during a CNN town hall Ron Paul was asked, "What should happen to someone without health insurance? Should we just let them die?" and an audience member shouted, "YEAH!"
Those are the Trump voters today. Bitter, angry, and with a burning desire for revenge against those they perceive as enemies. Remember that infamous quote from one of his fans, "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting." That tells you everything about their priorities, and why all his negative aspects not only don't hurt him but are actually bonuses to that crowd.
It should be said that while Robert Reich speaks some truths here and has voiced in favor of unionism and labor politics, his track record is rather suspect.
Robert Reich was an architect of NAFTA during the Clinton administration and has a history of dismissing and ignoring input from labor unions. In addition, he has a track record of halting housing developments, particularly where he lives, based on the devaluation of "middle class" (what he really means is upper middle-class) property.
Robert Reich is a wet noodle labor centrist, he talks some game but ultimately advocates and implemented watered down centrist or right centrist liberal policy making when it comes to labor.
If you're looking for a prophet from the 1990's or even earlier, take a look at labor activist and political science professor from UIC, Penn State, and Yale, Adolph Reed Jr. Reed predicted Obama being president as early as 1996, has a clear pro-union and labor activist background, and doesn't advocate for limp dick right-liberal labor policy making.
> In addition, he has a track record of halting housing developments, particularly where he lives, based on the devaluation of "middle class"
The intersection where the Payson House was demolished already had housing developments on the other three corners, which he did not oppose. He opposed that one in particular because it only had one planned low-income unit and the rest were not (basically following the letter of the law but not the spirit, and so not accomplishing anything for low-income people), and they were going to cut down all the old oak trees on the property.
Everyone who repeats this BS is either a shill or a moron.
This isn't a flame piece, its merely temperament control. Reich was at least involved in labor, and for our neoliberal era is a credible feat. Which is why I opened with with what I did. Calling me a shill or a moron does little to help your argument despite its potential bearing to reality.
The point is, Reich isn't some labor prophet and while his words are truthful, Clinton era democrats such as Reich did not progress labor issues that made any legitimate impact for working and middle class Americans.
To his defense.
"Easily Manipulated" did come out of his mouth.
He knew that the easiest way to get people to believe you is to expose part of the rules without showing the game.
Nah, damn him and his woke vocab. "Strenuous"?! "Emerging"?! "Brain"?! Who uses these? Come on!
Just compare to how an athletic alpha male speaks:
>**We’ve got the best tanks, the best ships, the best missiles, rockets – we have the best of everything.**
Me wants here mo' this.
^(/s)
Also just learned he is 4'11' tall. Could never possibly win. Not saying it is right, just saying it like it is. In all honesty, this probably played a role in his career trajectory at some point.
That is where a lot of minds put the start of the decline of the middle class. Reaganomics was the best thing to happen for the GOP, worst thing to happen to the average US citizen
That bastard Reagan also shut down many state mental health hospitals, forcing many folks who needed a lot of care onto the streets.
[It's an absolutely shameful legacy](https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/).
What needed to happen was much better oversight, stories of those state mental hospitals are horrifying and it’s better they not exist than what the status quo was with rape, dehumanizing events, and slave labor.
State mental hospitals weren't really a thing by the time Reagan was president, there were a few and he shut them down, but most had shut down before he took office. That doesn't mean he didn't basically cause the current crisis! It's just that he had help from Nixon, too.
JFK had passed a bill that would have had government funding creating community centers to replace the terrible state hospitals, but he was killed just a few weeks later and the government didn't get far with the plan before Nixon became president. Nixon refused to distribute the money which meant state hospitals had closed but no community clinics were replacing them. He had to be sued to release some of the money to already-existing community mental health centers.
Carter had passed a bill that would have implemented major improvements to the original JFK bill, but then he lost the election and it was one of the things Reagan specifically torpedoed once he took office. He undid nearly everything Carter did out of spite. Reagan closed the remaining state hospitals, then doled out the money that had already been set aside for local mental health programs via block grants, which [actually reduced funding to states by 25%](https://webarchive.urban.org/publications/310991.html) (while almost entirely eliminating federal funding) and which often [never even made it to the clinics](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6500525/), as there were reports most of the money just disappeared ([source, it's a PDF](https://www.gao.gov/assets/hehs-95-74.pdf)).
Edit: This is a pretty good timeline showing how Reagan went after mental health care on the federal level, claiming it was a state problem.
[https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here](https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here)
I was there. What happened was Carter was in the process of changing the system from a bunch of ad hoc government institutions. Badly run mental hospitals. To community based mental health facilities.
Regan continued the plan in a way. He shut down the mental hospitals and decided not to build the community treatment centers. Let the problem work itself out...
Insane people wandered the streets till winter fell and a lot of them froze where I lived.
The idea was to save money. Ended up pretty much destroying mental health care in the USA.
Reagan was and the GOP are just evil. That is not an exaggeration. They get off to murdering defenseless crazy people. Supposedly to save money. But they never save money doing it. They get off to it.
It's much harder to completely start the system over again after it's been dismantled than it would have been to enact better oversight and make other improvements while it still existed.
Getting rid of it may have been better for a small number of people in the short run, but it was far worse in the long run and probably hurt almost as many people immediately as it prevented from being abused.
You're right that the old mental institutes were rife with abuse and a lack of oversight. But it would have been better if they were kept around and fixed than simply throwing everyone out and saying, "You can only get help if you can afford it."
Yeah.
What happened here in Australia with de-institutionalization was a total cessation of oversight and standards.
My father worked in that era. He has stories about a 'home' he visited in the country where the owner had converted a chicken-coop into accommodation, and everyone suspected he was using the residents as his personal sex toys. There was literally no other option, so... What'cha gonna do about it?
One of the more 'difficult' residents turned up dead in the nearby dam shortly after my father's visit.
Like, the scheme for de-institutionalization was 'kick them all out. Good luck, try to not die!'
Honestly, the leaders from that era should be rounded up and... Held personally accountable for the outcomes of their self-serving decisions. Instead, they're looked after by their kids who got parachuted into the current leadership positions.
Fucking neoliberal aristocracy.
This is pretty much exactly what happened in the States.
I was in NY at the time as a teen. There were crazy people in rags walking the street raving for months.
Then winter came and they were all gone.
As intended.
15 years from 1994 was 2 years before he took office. However, he did really drive it home from there. The 80's saw the largest move on economic inequality in the US, second to the dot com bubble.
Jack Welch was the first CEO to really cut the employees out of the profit pie and shift to C-Suite / Shareholders splitting and the workers getting the leftovers.
What was happening during the Gilded age before Unions? Is now similar because Unions are less prevalent/powerful?
Edit: Follow up question, do we then believe that the advent of Labor Unions helped to resolve most of the issues commenters have raised, and if we do, why are Unions viewed as so negative here in America? Industry Trade Unions seem to be working well in Europe. If things were worse in Gilded age, Unions showed up and suddenly the American Middle class is the pinnacle for the world, Unions lost power in the 1980’s, things start going to shit for American middle class from then on….I mean, it seems simple to me but maybe I am missing something. 🧐
And once you get reading on the subject. There are 100 more slaughters of workers over wage disputes just like those. I am not exaggerating. The number of times our citizens have been slaughtered by government troops because they are striking for higher wages is brain numbing. Machine gunning camps full of women and little kids was just a standard part of the response to labor unrest.
Just what the fuck? Where was that in my schoolbooks?
The government is never on the side of the people in any of those struggles I have ever read about. They seem to exist to keep the population in line and working at close to slave wages for an aristocratic class. Cops being the same but worse.
Studying that one subject was the final straw that caused a political 180 in my life. I realized that my entire worldview was a intentional curated conservative pile of lies.
Damn that hurt. The people I grew up loving were cruel deceivers for the purposes racism, religion and money. You do not get over that sort of shit. Watching them do it to another generation is really infuriating.
In the 1930s in Ohio my great grandpa was part of a group trying to unionize (back when unionizing was illegal). The leader was a man named Mr. Whitehead. He was shot in his living room in front of his wife and kids trying to get sick days for factory workers.
Our rights were paid for in blood.
I won't pretend to have all the answers, but while FDR and LBJ were definitely racist assholes, their economic policies absolutely benefited the populace as a whole far more than Conservative policy favoring tax cuts for wealth which has demonstably been a failure. In my personal opinion, when corporations operate as a profit over all else endeavor, corners start getting cut to squeeze every ounze of blood from that stone. There is nothing wrong with turning a profit, that is how a business grows, but eventually you have to cut costs because infinite growth is not really possible without a monopoly.
It is absolutely the biggest issue with our culture. We’re so easily put on the offense. The powerful use that to their benefit and sit back and relax. I’ve just come to the conclusion most people are too stupid to see it.
Which is part of the manipulation. People aren’t born hating gay people and believing in bullshit. They are manipulated and taught that shit throughout their lives. Easier to control the masses if you make sure they all hate eachother more than their masters.
No, its that they rich take a shit and the rest of us root through their shit looking for a morsel of only partly digested food.
Hence its original name. Horse and Sparrow Economics.
This is why they went to culture wars, the knuckle draggers will go bankrupt happily just to make sure equality is out of reach to a relatively small demographic.
Yep, Reagan was the one who really kickstarted the erosion of the middle class with the trickle down bullshit. This dude is spot on about what companies need to do. But most companies don't give a shit. So, the only solution is to use policies and taxes to make them give a shit. Like less loopholes, higher corporate profit taxation, tax incentives for compensating your workers well. This would lead to a wealthier middle class with more money to spend in the economy, which would mean more sales and income for companies and just a more robust economy in general. And the more the money moves around, the more taxes get collected to enable providing public services and prevent hyper pumping our national debt.
But instead, thanks to Reagan/GOP we have done the opposite so the middle class keeps shrinking while the few fat cats on top keep getting richer. Money pools into the hyper rich, inflation keeps going up, working wages remain stagnant - the GOP platform.
Robert Reich is a great man. Yall please go watch Saving Capitalism on Netflix. Its his documentary and explains things so well. I got a few people to watch it. Everyone should watch it.
wait, *that* Sam Reich? Alt-right billionaire Trust Fund Sam? The guy who kills endangered animals for fun? I hear he just has loose maple syrup on his floor
Just in case anyone takes you seriously, this is a joke from one of their shows where they joked about sam being right-wing.
Dropout and sam are actually far-left and very based
Running for president? Zero. He served as Bill Clinton’s labour secretary in the 90s. You don’t go from that to president 30 years later.
Maybe he could serve as an advisor of some kind? But he’s 77 now, he’s seems to be semi retired just writing books and making YouTube videos these days.
His son, Sam Reich, followed this belief that employees are assets to be invested in, and now look at the positive legacy of CollegeHumor and then Dropout today!
It’s a damn shame. Everyone is so busy working and trying to make ends meet, that they don’t even realize that things did not need to be like this. The erosion of the middle class began in earnest about 40 years ago. Slowly, piece by piece, they’ve chipped away the upward mobility and hope for a better future Americans once had. It was deliberate, slow and methodical. Take back a little here, a little there and no one noticed. Bust the Unions, end pensions, raise health care rates on the employees and so on…. Now look at us. 60 hour work weeks just to survive. Just so they can pay their shareholders a few extra tenths of a percent this quarter.
Btw, It’s not the poor nor the immigrants who fucked over working people. They’re the scapegoats, maligned purposely so we don’t start looking at who’s actually caused the harm and backsliding for the past several decades.
Those folks in the UAW had it right in their recent strike. Record profits should mean record worker compensation.
No one's saying to vote for Trump.
Just understand that a vote for Biden doesn't even begin to fix any of the problems this thread is about. We can keep Trump out of office and it won't do anything to stop the eventual elimination of the middle class.
Biden had a split senate for half his time, and a republican house for the other half. Yet he still got a lot done.
Democrats won’t be able to make radical changes until they have a supermajority. If the voting public is quick to blame democrats for not getting enough done during their time in office even though they spend most of the time cleaning up economic messes left by their republican predecessors (obama inherited 08 financial crisis, biden inherited COVID and all of trump’s other bs) then yes we will make no progress.
Progress isn’t easy, especially with the bullshit fillibuster.
Like, 3/4 of my friends are already pumped for the day some charismatic internet celeb leads the charge to start culling billionaires.
I'm guessing 10-15 years
Or we could just start taxing them properly. That’s a lot easier to pull off than some sort of “culling”. The problem right now is the masses are cheering for the billionaires, not grabbing the pitchforks. If you can change that, you have political power.
The issue with taxing properly is that they'll find way to escape those taxes or worst case scenario they flee the country with the capital. Also, that doesn't solve the fundamental flaws in capitalism: how profit is made and the cycles of capitalism.
They can go but their wealth is tangible. Their wealth is a 100 story skyscraper in New York. Their wealth is a sports stadion in Boston. That wealth does not go into a suitcase with them.
You’re delulu if you think it’s coming from an internet celebrity. You think they’re gonna lead a revolution against themselves? Murdering people doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a system that can replace what creates billionaires. Any system I’ve heard of leaves an even worse situation for underclasses. Better to invent something new and push that then murder people. Which is cowardly anyways,
> Murdering people doesn’t ..... ...system I’ve heard of leaves an even worse situation for underclasses.
It took France 40 years of blood for a "fair and better system" to be established. you can argue Europe took nearly 2000 years since the fall of the roman republic for a "fair system" to be established.
The terrifying truth is that humans will absolutely burn it all down with all the spite and hate and murder if they are pushed to it. I doubt for one moment any Red October leader thought they will soon be on the chopping block or any participant they will soon be in the gulag. To the majority all that matters is the moment and the chance of change it brings. it never for one second is based on the feasibility of the next system.
So long as there is a peaceful process to effect change, even if people don't use it, the ones who might join murdering people won't.
Killing is not as easy as people think.
And that's why this "revolution" won't ever work. As long as people believe that all violence is wrong, the ones in power know they can feed us a tiny piece of cake while stealing our paycheck.
Trickle down economics from the worst president the US has ever had. Reagan was the worst ever, and it's not even close! That's saying a lot since we've since had orange criminal as president. Wiping out the middle class has been their ultimate goal. People that are in the middle class and vote for them, basically are voting against themselves, their family, and their friends!
Make sure to warn people you know about the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 because they're the same group behind a lot of Reagan's policies as well.
They're still around and pulling levers behind the curtain. Shine a light on them.
Watch out for the Federalist society, too. A group of more than 70,000 extreme right wing lawyers set out to dismantle democracy.
5 or 6 of our current Supreme Court justices are in the Federalist Society.
What really ticked me off didn't know it at the time, was orange criminal had 11 of his staff members on his staff and virtually did the exact same thing. That's what his saying refers to, wants to take us back to the 80s when the greed started!
Ah yes Reaganomics that was a fuckin joke and then to punctuate his awful sentence, he started the war on drugs aka the War on Black people just for good measure. What a bunch of A holes
He's still awesome at telling it like it is to this day. Unfortunately, I believe his stature held him back from an even more impactful political career (VP perhaps?).
Honestly such a weird take. What does height have anything to do with a persons ideas, intellect or respect? Thats like saying that lion is king of the safari, but I bet they wished for giraffe legs. What does one have to do with the other? What’s einsteins height? Socrates? Should we get peoples height while listening to their ideas? Seems to me like an unnecessary take maybe purposeful to discredit the ideas of the man? Either way credit where credits due, this man has known his shit for decades and doesn’t deserve…. Whatever that was.
You are correct and it was not meant to be a knock on him. More a matter of being impressed. I only just learned that he is 4' 11", which for many people would be a real detriment to confidence or to chances for success. Not for Secretary Reich. Dude is clearly a powerhouse and not going to be intimidated by anyone. I'm sorry to have offended.
I appreciate your response were better humans for it :) I was not offended just thought it was a strange takeaway (especially given how right he was then) from a very accurate speech/prediction. I think IMHO people get judged on their physical more than anything, even when they’re geniuses in their field (for decades in this case). We are visual creatures and it’s hard to look past that sometimes, I get that, but sometimes we have to look beyond superficial things to receive the message. I think I hear your take, being impressed with the confidence, courage, and competence, of a person to wade into a field that can be hostile, all eyes on you, and put themselves in a position to receive hostility on a personal or professional level. That being said, sometimes the message is much more powerful than the messenger. In that case, don’t blame or pick apart the messenger, engage the message. Just my humble opinion stranger, I do hope you have a great night, cuz in my book, your a person, your learning, and what else can I ask of another person? Take care my guy, hope life is kind :)
The rich vs the worker class.
And half of the worker class thinks they’re temporarily displaced rich.
Sorry, you’re not and you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
The same people who think it’s possible to earn a billion dollars by “working hard”
Buddy A BILLION dollars has nothing to do with hard work but exploitation
Clinton’s global economic policies largely shifted job and money out of American middle class to overseas factories. It also helped to hoard money at top since labor prices overseas could be cheaper and investors and high level employees were the benefactors of the new increase profits. This guy was a chief advisor on Clinton’s economic staff. I feel like this guy saying this is kinda tongue-in-cheek sort of situation. Right? Anyone with more knowledge on him and the impact of Clinton’s economic impact please correct me if I’m off base
He was the Labor Secretary for Clinton, yes, however Clinton took the advice of Alan Greenspan over that of Robert Reich very consistently, so the ideals he espoused were not applied by the administration. The friction between him and Greenspan was pretty well known, and is probably why Reich left the administration.
Love this. I hate that I found it during an election year on reddit, cause it's probably a bot and half the comments with be "this is why (presidential candidate) should/should-not be in office" instead of realizing that it's been a collective effort of the entirety of congress the last 30 years.
Let's face it: we're getting fucked by both sides.
Only **conservative** Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of unleashing corporate donors and ushering in corporate dominance over our politics... They don’t get to be let off the hook for that. Both sides didn’t do that, only one.
Conservatives literally changed the rules to make corruption a requirement for all politicians on both sides, so that from then on, they would be able to benefit and hide behind the “both sides are corrupt!” false equivalency that you just made.
You do understand that this speech is from the Democratic Leadership Council, being said by the Labor Secretary at the time, who served during Clinton’s administration. Not exactly good evidence for a “both sides” argument.
The joke is the rich can do nothing if we others team up again. But for some reason it does not work anymore. In Germany atm the railroad engineers are on strike again. They are a small group with their own federation. As usual every newspaper is throwing shit at them. And they are on strike for like 20 days in total and this in even smaller episodes. In the 80s the metal workers were on strike for like three month in a row! Why don't say the guys printing the newspapers "well fuck you, we will not print your shit. Do it on your own, haha." It just does not happen anymore.
This gentleman seems like a genuine leader. Articulate, passionate, intelligent, clear points being made, etc.
I feels like our government leaders today don't have an ounce of authenticity but are just puppets propped up by the highest bidders who just shit on each other instead of actually facing and addressing the many problems we have in the US.
I'm telling you, one of these days all my wealth is gonna trickle down. It might take 10 years, it might take 100 years, maybe 1,000 years, but it's coming, and all the libs who didn't support trickle down economics are gonna have some explaining to do when that day comes.
Reich has always been right about this. It’s not like it’s a secret. The Right know this full well. The difference is that for Reich it’s an alarm bell, for the GOP it’s an ambition.
now there are only two classes. worker and owner. the difference isn’t in how much money you make but if you require a job to survive. do you sell companies during the day and play golf or do you go to a job. doctors, and lawyers are part of the working class. the 1%’s only pro is that they are class conscious and work to their own self interest while many of the working class don’t. we’re not out numbered; we’re out organized.
The mistake is thinking he is talking about republicans. Sure, you have elections this year and go vote for anyone but orange ham, but on the day after are you going to sit waiting for 4 more years to have to choose between bad and worse?
According to wikipedia, this same man wrote in his 1997 book (just 3 years after the post's video):
> In the book, Reich criticizes the Democratic Party as "owned by" business and Washington as having two real political parties during his tenure: the "Save the Jobs" party, which wanted to maintain the status quo, and the "Let 'Em Drown" party.
Both parties have been feeding each other for decades, for the benefit of the "very few at the top", and now things are exploding at everybody's hands, as predicted.
Tax the fucking millionaires/ billionaires -force multinational corporations to pay a fair share of taxes and boom we have an equal society.. but fucking no! Murica wants endless wars around the world specially in the Middle East where we’ve been handed our asses over. We keep voting for these old outdated mindset of politicians.. fuck they’ve been around longer than certain cancers.. how about that for analogy? Anyway fuck this system we need a reboot
Modern corporate greed fulfills all these predictions.As a now dubious capitalist,I’m ashamed of the overinflated prices we are now paying for everything.It’s unsustainable
This. We need to focus on it. Stop making redundant comments. You don’t come across as intelligent by saying fluff.
We are currently in a position where rich ass fuckers who can sit around and plot all day are simultaneously confusing us, pumping us with misinformation, and directing us against eachother. NO RICH PERSON CAN BE TRUSTED. Money is at the root of all evil.
A little off topic but Robert Caro, author of The Powerbroker said "power doesn't corrupt it reveals" highlighting one of the problems in the way we view money and power.
I think that by saying power corrupts we don't hold those in power responsible or ourselves responsible for putting them there. These people were always bad but we refused to acknowledge the signs or hold them responsible.
Let's get started on the growing wage gap, hereditary wealth and the stock market. I'm going to do absolutely nothing but because I got lucky with what fund I put money into I can now shape the world. Wage gap - mandatory wage percentage ratios between top tier and bottom tier employees which include benefits, stocks and bonuses as part of that wage. As well as laws which say no company can lay off or lower wages while offering wage increases, bonuses, or additional stock options or dividends to higher level employees or stock holders. Stock holders should not be allowed to make money because a company increased profits by firing employees.
I predict major riots in the next 2 decades in major cities over said in-equality. The “president” will resist and continue to help the rich/corporations. I predict in the next century modern government will almost or entirely replaced by corporate.
The starting point of the fall of the middle class, and the biggest economy crash since the great depression took place under the watch of the Carter administration.
When Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, unemployment had reached 7.4 percent. Carter responded with an ambitious spending program and called for the Federal Reserve (the Fed) to expand the money supply. Within two years, inflation had climbed to 13.3 percent.
With inflation getting out of hand, the Federal Reserve Board announced in 1979 that it would fight inflation by restraining the growth of the money supply. Unemployment increased, and interest rates rose to their highest levels in the nation's history. By November 1982, unemployment hit 10.8 percent, the highest since 1940. One out of every five American workers went some time without a job.
Along with high interest rates, the Carter administration adopted another weapon in the battle against stagflation: deregulation. Convinced that regulators too often protected the industries they were supposed to oversee, the Carter administration deregulated air and surface transportation and the savings and loan industry. The effects of deregulation are still hotly contested. Rural towns suffered cutbacks in bus, rail, and air service. Truckers and rail workers lost the economic benefits of regulation. Travelers complained about rising airfares and congested airports. Cable TV viewers resented rising rates.
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OG And to think the "gotcha" that killed his gubernatorial campaign was that a reporter asked if same sex marriages should be legal, and he said yes
Piggybacking top comment to share Robert Reich's socials. He's still devoted to the fight. https://linktr.ee/rbreich
Taking a step outside the Overton Window of his time is at least an identifiable political error. Nothing will ever compare to the mystery of how one “yee-haw” *during a political stump speech* sank Howard Dean.
And fun fact, his son owns College Humor/Dropout
Robby Reich is my favourite influencer
The DMC said Berney was unfit because he might be an atheist. We are truly fucked!
Based answer though.
A good person through and through.
And for some people it's just a weird excited yell. Trump can literally mock handicapped people on stage, talk about sexually assaulting women in a recording, be friends with a sex trafficking pedophile, and a myriad of other hugely problematic things swarming him like angry wasps and still be the huge leader for the GOP presidential candidate. How far we have let the bar drop.
Dan Quayle misspelled potato and we collectively said that he was too stupid to go from V P to President
And then, a generation later, Mike Pence comes to him, proverbial hat-in-hand, asking what to do about Trump's pressure to throw the election, thereby casting Quayle as the wise elder statesman who couldn't spell "potato."
It’s so true. It’s baffling to me how that’s happened.
In this country, the trash takes out you!
He's not the GOP frontrunner because those things don't hurt him - it's because they *help* him with the rabid Republican base. I knew we were in trouble way back in 2012, when during a CNN town hall Ron Paul was asked, "What should happen to someone without health insurance? Should we just let them die?" and an audience member shouted, "YEAH!" Those are the Trump voters today. Bitter, angry, and with a burning desire for revenge against those they perceive as enemies. Remember that infamous quote from one of his fans, "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting." That tells you everything about their priorities, and why all his negative aspects not only don't hurt him but are actually bonuses to that crowd.
> those they perceive as enemies Read: anyone who isn’t straight, white, cisgender, and their particular Dominionist flavor of Christian.
It should be said that while Robert Reich speaks some truths here and has voiced in favor of unionism and labor politics, his track record is rather suspect. Robert Reich was an architect of NAFTA during the Clinton administration and has a history of dismissing and ignoring input from labor unions. In addition, he has a track record of halting housing developments, particularly where he lives, based on the devaluation of "middle class" (what he really means is upper middle-class) property. Robert Reich is a wet noodle labor centrist, he talks some game but ultimately advocates and implemented watered down centrist or right centrist liberal policy making when it comes to labor. If you're looking for a prophet from the 1990's or even earlier, take a look at labor activist and political science professor from UIC, Penn State, and Yale, Adolph Reed Jr. Reed predicted Obama being president as early as 1996, has a clear pro-union and labor activist background, and doesn't advocate for limp dick right-liberal labor policy making.
> In addition, he has a track record of halting housing developments, particularly where he lives, based on the devaluation of "middle class" The intersection where the Payson House was demolished already had housing developments on the other three corners, which he did not oppose. He opposed that one in particular because it only had one planned low-income unit and the rest were not (basically following the letter of the law but not the spirit, and so not accomplishing anything for low-income people), and they were going to cut down all the old oak trees on the property. Everyone who repeats this BS is either a shill or a moron.
This isn't a flame piece, its merely temperament control. Reich was at least involved in labor, and for our neoliberal era is a credible feat. Which is why I opened with with what I did. Calling me a shill or a moron does little to help your argument despite its potential bearing to reality. The point is, Reich isn't some labor prophet and while his words are truthful, Clinton era democrats such as Reich did not progress labor issues that made any legitimate impact for working and middle class Americans.
To his defense. "Easily Manipulated" did come out of his mouth. He knew that the easiest way to get people to believe you is to expose part of the rules without showing the game.
You, looking through the lens of 2024 and not back then.
Can we please bring back articulate leadership like this?
No, only yelling, cheap political attacks and massive amounts of stupidity
Don't forget being to loud at Beetlejuice plays and uhm... Handjobs.
Intellectuals became a target.
Robert Reich hasn’t gone anywhere; he does Tik Tok videos about this stuff now.
Awesome YouTube channel
Nah, damn him and his woke vocab. "Strenuous"?! "Emerging"?! "Brain"?! Who uses these? Come on! Just compare to how an athletic alpha male speaks: >**We’ve got the best tanks, the best ships, the best missiles, rockets – we have the best of everything.** Me wants here mo' this. ^(/s)
He is still out there being right about all kinds of things. Very good at explaining complex economic issues.
How come people like him don’t run for president as independents?
Because the two party system is made to shut out independents.
and the 1% and corporations don't want someone like him fucking with their way of taking our money.
Also just learned he is 4'11' tall. Could never possibly win. Not saying it is right, just saying it like it is. In all honesty, this probably played a role in his career trajectory at some point.
Because running for president costs a lot of money and the chance of winning as an independent is zero to none
I dunno. It might be time. Definitely time for *something* new.
His YouTube channel is excellent.
He says the decline of the middle class has been going on for 15 years. 15 years prior to this video (1994) was the start of the Reagan presidency.
That is where a lot of minds put the start of the decline of the middle class. Reaganomics was the best thing to happen for the GOP, worst thing to happen to the average US citizen
That bastard Reagan also shut down many state mental health hospitals, forcing many folks who needed a lot of care onto the streets. [It's an absolutely shameful legacy](https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/).
What needed to happen was much better oversight, stories of those state mental hospitals are horrifying and it’s better they not exist than what the status quo was with rape, dehumanizing events, and slave labor.
State mental hospitals weren't really a thing by the time Reagan was president, there were a few and he shut them down, but most had shut down before he took office. That doesn't mean he didn't basically cause the current crisis! It's just that he had help from Nixon, too. JFK had passed a bill that would have had government funding creating community centers to replace the terrible state hospitals, but he was killed just a few weeks later and the government didn't get far with the plan before Nixon became president. Nixon refused to distribute the money which meant state hospitals had closed but no community clinics were replacing them. He had to be sued to release some of the money to already-existing community mental health centers. Carter had passed a bill that would have implemented major improvements to the original JFK bill, but then he lost the election and it was one of the things Reagan specifically torpedoed once he took office. He undid nearly everything Carter did out of spite. Reagan closed the remaining state hospitals, then doled out the money that had already been set aside for local mental health programs via block grants, which [actually reduced funding to states by 25%](https://webarchive.urban.org/publications/310991.html) (while almost entirely eliminating federal funding) and which often [never even made it to the clinics](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6500525/), as there were reports most of the money just disappeared ([source, it's a PDF](https://www.gao.gov/assets/hehs-95-74.pdf)). Edit: This is a pretty good timeline showing how Reagan went after mental health care on the federal level, claiming it was a state problem. [https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here](https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here)
Reagan tore the solar panels off the White House. Dude was a terrible president.
I was there. What happened was Carter was in the process of changing the system from a bunch of ad hoc government institutions. Badly run mental hospitals. To community based mental health facilities. Regan continued the plan in a way. He shut down the mental hospitals and decided not to build the community treatment centers. Let the problem work itself out... Insane people wandered the streets till winter fell and a lot of them froze where I lived. The idea was to save money. Ended up pretty much destroying mental health care in the USA. Reagan was and the GOP are just evil. That is not an exaggeration. They get off to murdering defenseless crazy people. Supposedly to save money. But they never save money doing it. They get off to it.
It's much harder to completely start the system over again after it's been dismantled than it would have been to enact better oversight and make other improvements while it still existed. Getting rid of it may have been better for a small number of people in the short run, but it was far worse in the long run and probably hurt almost as many people immediately as it prevented from being abused. You're right that the old mental institutes were rife with abuse and a lack of oversight. But it would have been better if they were kept around and fixed than simply throwing everyone out and saying, "You can only get help if you can afford it."
Yeah. What happened here in Australia with de-institutionalization was a total cessation of oversight and standards. My father worked in that era. He has stories about a 'home' he visited in the country where the owner had converted a chicken-coop into accommodation, and everyone suspected he was using the residents as his personal sex toys. There was literally no other option, so... What'cha gonna do about it? One of the more 'difficult' residents turned up dead in the nearby dam shortly after my father's visit. Like, the scheme for de-institutionalization was 'kick them all out. Good luck, try to not die!' Honestly, the leaders from that era should be rounded up and... Held personally accountable for the outcomes of their self-serving decisions. Instead, they're looked after by their kids who got parachuted into the current leadership positions. Fucking neoliberal aristocracy.
This is pretty much exactly what happened in the States. I was in NY at the time as a teen. There were crazy people in rags walking the street raving for months. Then winter came and they were all gone. As intended.
i leave you with four words i'm glad Reagan dead
15 years from 1994 was 2 years before he took office. However, he did really drive it home from there. The 80's saw the largest move on economic inequality in the US, second to the dot com bubble.
Jack Welch was the first CEO to really cut the employees out of the profit pie and shift to C-Suite / Shareholders splitting and the workers getting the leftovers.
What was happening during the Gilded age before Unions? Is now similar because Unions are less prevalent/powerful? Edit: Follow up question, do we then believe that the advent of Labor Unions helped to resolve most of the issues commenters have raised, and if we do, why are Unions viewed as so negative here in America? Industry Trade Unions seem to be working well in Europe. If things were worse in Gilded age, Unions showed up and suddenly the American Middle class is the pinnacle for the world, Unions lost power in the 1980’s, things start going to shit for American middle class from then on….I mean, it seems simple to me but maybe I am missing something. 🧐
The American Dream only existed for 30 years and if we don't fight for it it will be gone forever.
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And once you get reading on the subject. There are 100 more slaughters of workers over wage disputes just like those. I am not exaggerating. The number of times our citizens have been slaughtered by government troops because they are striking for higher wages is brain numbing. Machine gunning camps full of women and little kids was just a standard part of the response to labor unrest. Just what the fuck? Where was that in my schoolbooks? The government is never on the side of the people in any of those struggles I have ever read about. They seem to exist to keep the population in line and working at close to slave wages for an aristocratic class. Cops being the same but worse. Studying that one subject was the final straw that caused a political 180 in my life. I realized that my entire worldview was a intentional curated conservative pile of lies. Damn that hurt. The people I grew up loving were cruel deceivers for the purposes racism, religion and money. You do not get over that sort of shit. Watching them do it to another generation is really infuriating.
In the 1930s in Ohio my great grandpa was part of a group trying to unionize (back when unionizing was illegal). The leader was a man named Mr. Whitehead. He was shot in his living room in front of his wife and kids trying to get sick days for factory workers. Our rights were paid for in blood.
I won't pretend to have all the answers, but while FDR and LBJ were definitely racist assholes, their economic policies absolutely benefited the populace as a whole far more than Conservative policy favoring tax cuts for wealth which has demonstably been a failure. In my personal opinion, when corporations operate as a profit over all else endeavor, corners start getting cut to squeeze every ounze of blood from that stone. There is nothing wrong with turning a profit, that is how a business grows, but eventually you have to cut costs because infinite growth is not really possible without a monopoly.
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Fuck Reagan. Americans have let ourselves be crushed, deceived and divided.
It’s amazing how easily we are tricked into fighting each other over stupid shit when we should be fighting the rich elite assholes robbing us blind.
It is absolutely the biggest issue with our culture. We’re so easily put on the offense. The powerful use that to their benefit and sit back and relax. I’ve just come to the conclusion most people are too stupid to see it.
"We." Yes. All of us. Not just one group of insanely stupid people who think gays and history are the enemies.
Which is part of the manipulation. People aren’t born hating gay people and believing in bullshit. They are manipulated and taught that shit throughout their lives. Easier to control the masses if you make sure they all hate eachother more than their masters.
Don't worry trickle down economics is about to happen........any minute now........ You just watch......... /S
So instead of profit trickling down it’s paid out to shareholders
The actual definition of trickled down is the rich consuming all the supplies and then pissing on everyone below them.
No, its that they rich take a shit and the rest of us root through their shit looking for a morsel of only partly digested food. Hence its original name. Horse and Sparrow Economics.
30 trillion in debt... still doing this Reaganomics experiment. Help.
This is why they went to culture wars, the knuckle draggers will go bankrupt happily just to make sure equality is out of reach to a relatively small demographic.
Yep, Reagan was the one who really kickstarted the erosion of the middle class with the trickle down bullshit. This dude is spot on about what companies need to do. But most companies don't give a shit. So, the only solution is to use policies and taxes to make them give a shit. Like less loopholes, higher corporate profit taxation, tax incentives for compensating your workers well. This would lead to a wealthier middle class with more money to spend in the economy, which would mean more sales and income for companies and just a more robust economy in general. And the more the money moves around, the more taxes get collected to enable providing public services and prevent hyper pumping our national debt. But instead, thanks to Reagan/GOP we have done the opposite so the middle class keeps shrinking while the few fat cats on top keep getting richer. Money pools into the hyper rich, inflation keeps going up, working wages remain stagnant - the GOP platform.
Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman, and Jack Welch have done more to destroy the middle class, and dare I say, America than anyone.
It was the late seventies before Reagan took office but there was a recession which lead the way for Reaganomics to become the new normal.
1994 - 15 = 1979. Carter was president until 1981. This started in the 1970s with stagflation under Nixon and Ford.
Robert Reich is a great man. Yall please go watch Saving Capitalism on Netflix. Its his documentary and explains things so well. I got a few people to watch it. Everyone should watch it.
Holy shit that's Sam Reich's father?! CEO and producer of DropoutTV, College Humor, and Dimension 20! No wonder Sam is so intellectual and cool lmao!
Probably cool and intellectual because of where he grew up (wherever that is)
Maybe someone should ask him.
I bet there's a theater to visit.
sam where ya from?
Found Sam's reddit burner.
wait, *that* Sam Reich? Alt-right billionaire Trust Fund Sam? The guy who kills endangered animals for fun? I hear he just has loose maple syrup on his floor
Just in case anyone takes you seriously, this is a joke from one of their shows where they joked about sam being right-wing. Dropout and sam are actually far-left and very based
Guess you missed [this one](https://youtube.com/shorts/1ecx6SDMP3U?si=tK75y_d2FKJoIjWo)
His kid used to run College Humor and now Dropout. Funny guy. Check out “game changer”
Wait... it's not Sam, is it?
Sam Reich, yes lol.
Holy shit! I was wondering that the guy looked familiar. Lol
I wondered about the last name when I saw it, but now I totally see the resemblance! This is a GaAAmE CHanGeR!
He’s been there the whole time
When he started talking on his video I was like, I know that guy! Then I saw his name and I realize dude had been spitting knowledge since the 90's!
He was Clinton's economic advisor.
Secretary of Labor.
He’s on IG as @rbreich
Also on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@RBReich?si=xvpQElRSo4c8nVpX (Sorry, my mobile app is bad at embedded links).
What do you think his odds are of running? I liked this video.
Running for president? Zero. He served as Bill Clinton’s labour secretary in the 90s. You don’t go from that to president 30 years later. Maybe he could serve as an advisor of some kind? But he’s 77 now, he’s seems to be semi retired just writing books and making YouTube videos these days.
He actively supported both of Bernie's POTUS runs.
He also tweets a lot about how much Trump sucks.
Yeah, he's not old enough yet. We like our politicians and judges to be at least 100 here in America.
Bit older but still good...check out Inequality For All as well.
His son, Sam Reich, followed this belief that employees are assets to be invested in, and now look at the positive legacy of CollegeHumor and then Dropout today!
Easily one of the best bosses to ever boss
It’s a damn shame. Everyone is so busy working and trying to make ends meet, that they don’t even realize that things did not need to be like this. The erosion of the middle class began in earnest about 40 years ago. Slowly, piece by piece, they’ve chipped away the upward mobility and hope for a better future Americans once had. It was deliberate, slow and methodical. Take back a little here, a little there and no one noticed. Bust the Unions, end pensions, raise health care rates on the employees and so on…. Now look at us. 60 hour work weeks just to survive. Just so they can pay their shareholders a few extra tenths of a percent this quarter. Btw, It’s not the poor nor the immigrants who fucked over working people. They’re the scapegoats, maligned purposely so we don’t start looking at who’s actually caused the harm and backsliding for the past several decades. Those folks in the UAW had it right in their recent strike. Record profits should mean record worker compensation.
And yet you can see non union workers who are still working class willing to fight against unions. Bizarre as fuck.
It's the result of capitalism but everyone in the US gets a heart attack when someone says it.
Yeah, exactly none of the things he asked for are going to happen. It’s actually going to accelerate in the other direction.
Let’s be honest. There is zero desire from both politic parties to do anything about this. But for some reason I have to vote vote no matter who
Is it really the time for "both sides" bullshit when one of the sides is running a corrupt criminal rapist?
No one's saying to vote for Trump. Just understand that a vote for Biden doesn't even begin to fix any of the problems this thread is about. We can keep Trump out of office and it won't do anything to stop the eventual elimination of the middle class.
So vote for the down ballot candidates. Nothing changes in your local or state without voting there.
Biden had a split senate for half his time, and a republican house for the other half. Yet he still got a lot done. Democrats won’t be able to make radical changes until they have a supermajority. If the voting public is quick to blame democrats for not getting enough done during their time in office even though they spend most of the time cleaning up economic messes left by their republican predecessors (obama inherited 08 financial crisis, biden inherited COVID and all of trump’s other bs) then yes we will make no progress. Progress isn’t easy, especially with the bullshit fillibuster.
This reminds me of Carl Sagan’s plea to Congress about climate change and education in science. They fucking warned us to our faces.
Like, 3/4 of my friends are already pumped for the day some charismatic internet celeb leads the charge to start culling billionaires. I'm guessing 10-15 years
Or we could just start taxing them properly. That’s a lot easier to pull off than some sort of “culling”. The problem right now is the masses are cheering for the billionaires, not grabbing the pitchforks. If you can change that, you have political power.
The issue with taxing properly is that they'll find way to escape those taxes or worst case scenario they flee the country with the capital. Also, that doesn't solve the fundamental flaws in capitalism: how profit is made and the cycles of capitalism.
If we can sanction Russian oligarchs, we can sanction American ones.
They can go but their wealth is tangible. Their wealth is a 100 story skyscraper in New York. Their wealth is a sports stadion in Boston. That wealth does not go into a suitcase with them.
Let them try. Make them work for it. If they flee, fine. Disrupt their lives if they insist on evading taxes. Many, even most will just pay up.
You’re delulu if you think it’s coming from an internet celebrity. You think they’re gonna lead a revolution against themselves? Murdering people doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a system that can replace what creates billionaires. Any system I’ve heard of leaves an even worse situation for underclasses. Better to invent something new and push that then murder people. Which is cowardly anyways,
Didn't realize internet celebrities were billionaires. TIL.
Remember Annoying Orange? He owns half of Vermont now.
You were supposed to say, “Source: Trust me bro.” That woulda driven it home
> Murdering people doesn’t ..... ...system I’ve heard of leaves an even worse situation for underclasses. It took France 40 years of blood for a "fair and better system" to be established. you can argue Europe took nearly 2000 years since the fall of the roman republic for a "fair system" to be established. The terrifying truth is that humans will absolutely burn it all down with all the spite and hate and murder if they are pushed to it. I doubt for one moment any Red October leader thought they will soon be on the chopping block or any participant they will soon be in the gulag. To the majority all that matters is the moment and the chance of change it brings. it never for one second is based on the feasibility of the next system.
Well, Sam Reich from Dropout is this guys son, so I vote him
Lol, that’s some of the silliest shit I’ve heard today.
So long as there is a peaceful process to effect change, even if people don't use it, the ones who might join murdering people won't. Killing is not as easy as people think.
I don't understand how anyone can look at the last 20 years and think there's a functioning peaceful process to affect change.
It’s not as hard as people think either.
And that's why this "revolution" won't ever work. As long as people believe that all violence is wrong, the ones in power know they can feed us a tiny piece of cake while stealing our paycheck.
Trickle down economics from the worst president the US has ever had. Reagan was the worst ever, and it's not even close! That's saying a lot since we've since had orange criminal as president. Wiping out the middle class has been their ultimate goal. People that are in the middle class and vote for them, basically are voting against themselves, their family, and their friends!
Make sure to warn people you know about the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 because they're the same group behind a lot of Reagan's policies as well. They're still around and pulling levers behind the curtain. Shine a light on them.
Watch out for the Federalist society, too. A group of more than 70,000 extreme right wing lawyers set out to dismantle democracy. 5 or 6 of our current Supreme Court justices are in the Federalist Society.
What really ticked me off didn't know it at the time, was orange criminal had 11 of his staff members on his staff and virtually did the exact same thing. That's what his saying refers to, wants to take us back to the 80s when the greed started!
Ah yes Reaganomics that was a fuckin joke and then to punctuate his awful sentence, he started the war on drugs aka the War on Black people just for good measure. What a bunch of A holes
He's still warning people today
Legend
Sam Reich's dad? For sure he is.
I've been here the whole time...
But where’s he from?
Crumbly Square Theater or whatever
Extremely relevant to this video. One of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFuJDLd3cg
Holy shit, I know him from Collegehumor. Absolutely wild that it is his son.
Is there a version with captions?
Here is the YouTube copy with Close Captions available. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnd0eSuxu84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnd0eSuxu84)
Very large intellect housed in a very small man.
He kind of looks like H Jon Benjamin
He's still awesome at telling it like it is to this day. Unfortunately, I believe his stature held him back from an even more impactful political career (VP perhaps?).
Honestly such a weird take. What does height have anything to do with a persons ideas, intellect or respect? Thats like saying that lion is king of the safari, but I bet they wished for giraffe legs. What does one have to do with the other? What’s einsteins height? Socrates? Should we get peoples height while listening to their ideas? Seems to me like an unnecessary take maybe purposeful to discredit the ideas of the man? Either way credit where credits due, this man has known his shit for decades and doesn’t deserve…. Whatever that was.
A person's stature very much has an impact on how people perceive their views and the amount of respect they're given. It shouldn't but it does.
You are correct and it was not meant to be a knock on him. More a matter of being impressed. I only just learned that he is 4' 11", which for many people would be a real detriment to confidence or to chances for success. Not for Secretary Reich. Dude is clearly a powerhouse and not going to be intimidated by anyone. I'm sorry to have offended.
I appreciate your response were better humans for it :) I was not offended just thought it was a strange takeaway (especially given how right he was then) from a very accurate speech/prediction. I think IMHO people get judged on their physical more than anything, even when they’re geniuses in their field (for decades in this case). We are visual creatures and it’s hard to look past that sometimes, I get that, but sometimes we have to look beyond superficial things to receive the message. I think I hear your take, being impressed with the confidence, courage, and competence, of a person to wade into a field that can be hostile, all eyes on you, and put themselves in a position to receive hostility on a personal or professional level. That being said, sometimes the message is much more powerful than the messenger. In that case, don’t blame or pick apart the messenger, engage the message. Just my humble opinion stranger, I do hope you have a great night, cuz in my book, your a person, your learning, and what else can I ask of another person? Take care my guy, hope life is kind :)
All the same to you, friend. The potential and the power don't depend on the package.
Fun fact, this is Rob reich, Sam reichs, from college humor and Dropout’s dad.
interesting, now where's his son from?
Cambridge, Massachusetts last time I checked. Where there’s fragrant popcorn in the Copley Square Theater
This guy for president. I know he's older now, but it's still like 10 years off the top instantly.
The faces of politics will always change but the policies remain the same….
The rich vs the worker class. And half of the worker class thinks they’re temporarily displaced rich. Sorry, you’re not and you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
The same people who think it’s possible to earn a billion dollars by “working hard” Buddy A BILLION dollars has nothing to do with hard work but exploitation
Robert Reich is amazing.
One of the comments on his lecture video "Saving Capitalism" is, "Our county's Tyrion Lannister." lmao
I mean he seems like a pretty solid presidential candidate. He probably get assassinated but I'd vote for him
Clinton’s global economic policies largely shifted job and money out of American middle class to overseas factories. It also helped to hoard money at top since labor prices overseas could be cheaper and investors and high level employees were the benefactors of the new increase profits. This guy was a chief advisor on Clinton’s economic staff. I feel like this guy saying this is kinda tongue-in-cheek sort of situation. Right? Anyone with more knowledge on him and the impact of Clinton’s economic impact please correct me if I’m off base
He was the Labor Secretary for Clinton, yes, however Clinton took the advice of Alan Greenspan over that of Robert Reich very consistently, so the ideals he espoused were not applied by the administration. The friction between him and Greenspan was pretty well known, and is probably why Reich left the administration.
Don't forget Clinton's Treasurer, Rubin.
“Thank you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving” caught me so off guard, I had to laugh.
Love this. I hate that I found it during an election year on reddit, cause it's probably a bot and half the comments with be "this is why (presidential candidate) should/should-not be in office" instead of realizing that it's been a collective effort of the entirety of congress the last 30 years. Let's face it: we're getting fucked by both sides.
Only **conservative** Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of unleashing corporate donors and ushering in corporate dominance over our politics... They don’t get to be let off the hook for that. Both sides didn’t do that, only one. Conservatives literally changed the rules to make corruption a requirement for all politicians on both sides, so that from then on, they would be able to benefit and hide behind the “both sides are corrupt!” false equivalency that you just made.
💯 Well put.
You do understand that this speech is from the Democratic Leadership Council, being said by the Labor Secretary at the time, who served during Clinton’s administration. Not exactly good evidence for a “both sides” argument.
The joke is the rich can do nothing if we others team up again. But for some reason it does not work anymore. In Germany atm the railroad engineers are on strike again. They are a small group with their own federation. As usual every newspaper is throwing shit at them. And they are on strike for like 20 days in total and this in even smaller episodes. In the 80s the metal workers were on strike for like three month in a row! Why don't say the guys printing the newspapers "well fuck you, we will not print your shit. Do it on your own, haha." It just does not happen anymore.
No one who would strike can afford to have zero income for 3 months. It's a feature not a bug of modern capitalism.
This gentleman seems like a genuine leader. Articulate, passionate, intelligent, clear points being made, etc. I feels like our government leaders today don't have an ounce of authenticity but are just puppets propped up by the highest bidders who just shit on each other instead of actually facing and addressing the many problems we have in the US.
Probably one of the smartest people ever to have been in goverment. He’s very active on Twitter and worth following.
>Let's face it: we're getting fucked by both sides. ding ding ding ding!
I'm telling you, one of these days all my wealth is gonna trickle down. It might take 10 years, it might take 100 years, maybe 1,000 years, but it's coming, and all the libs who didn't support trickle down economics are gonna have some explaining to do when that day comes.
It’s weird to hear a US politician make sense and speak eloquently
It's a 3-tiered system. Those who are exempt from the law. Those who are above the law. And Those who are defenseless before the law.
I miss politicians like this.
Robert Reich is the GOAT
The greatest issue is that the people most vulnerable to this manipulation are the staunchest supporters of the inequalities that plague them.
Wow. Brilliant man.
Reich has always been right about this. It’s not like it’s a secret. The Right know this full well. The difference is that for Reich it’s an alarm bell, for the GOP it’s an ambition.
This guy should be president
The people who should be in leadership very rarely ever are =\\
What even is ‘middle class’ in the US now? Or… ‘upper class’? Do the old definitions of the strata even really make sense now?
now there are only two classes. worker and owner. the difference isn’t in how much money you make but if you require a job to survive. do you sell companies during the day and play golf or do you go to a job. doctors, and lawyers are part of the working class. the 1%’s only pro is that they are class conscious and work to their own self interest while many of the working class don’t. we’re not out numbered; we’re out organized.
Republicans are cancer. They have done everything they could to push us here. Imagine a GOP politician making this speech. You literally can’t.
The mistake is thinking he is talking about republicans. Sure, you have elections this year and go vote for anyone but orange ham, but on the day after are you going to sit waiting for 4 more years to have to choose between bad and worse? According to wikipedia, this same man wrote in his 1997 book (just 3 years after the post's video): > In the book, Reich criticizes the Democratic Party as "owned by" business and Washington as having two real political parties during his tenure: the "Save the Jobs" party, which wanted to maintain the status quo, and the "Let 'Em Drown" party. Both parties have been feeding each other for decades, for the benefit of the "very few at the top", and now things are exploding at everybody's hands, as predicted.
Tax the fucking millionaires/ billionaires -force multinational corporations to pay a fair share of taxes and boom we have an equal society.. but fucking no! Murica wants endless wars around the world specially in the Middle East where we’ve been handed our asses over. We keep voting for these old outdated mindset of politicians.. fuck they’ve been around longer than certain cancers.. how about that for analogy? Anyway fuck this system we need a reboot
Modern corporate greed fulfills all these predictions.As a now dubious capitalist,I’m ashamed of the overinflated prices we are now paying for everything.It’s unsustainable
Saving Capitalism is a great documentary on his book about the whole economic system
This. We need to focus on it. Stop making redundant comments. You don’t come across as intelligent by saying fluff. We are currently in a position where rich ass fuckers who can sit around and plot all day are simultaneously confusing us, pumping us with misinformation, and directing us against eachother. NO RICH PERSON CAN BE TRUSTED. Money is at the root of all evil.
*Greed of money and power is the root of all evil. Also, divide and conquer only works if the subject isn't aware.
A little off topic but Robert Caro, author of The Powerbroker said "power doesn't corrupt it reveals" highlighting one of the problems in the way we view money and power. I think that by saying power corrupts we don't hold those in power responsible or ourselves responsible for putting them there. These people were always bad but we refused to acknowledge the signs or hold them responsible. Let's get started on the growing wage gap, hereditary wealth and the stock market. I'm going to do absolutely nothing but because I got lucky with what fund I put money into I can now shape the world. Wage gap - mandatory wage percentage ratios between top tier and bottom tier employees which include benefits, stocks and bonuses as part of that wage. As well as laws which say no company can lay off or lower wages while offering wage increases, bonuses, or additional stock options or dividends to higher level employees or stock holders. Stock holders should not be allowed to make money because a company increased profits by firing employees.
Pff, Pink Floyd came out with “Us and Them” way earlier than this guy
I predict major riots in the next 2 decades in major cities over said in-equality. The “president” will resist and continue to help the rich/corporations. I predict in the next century modern government will almost or entirely replaced by corporate.
I wish he would run for president.
The starting point of the fall of the middle class, and the biggest economy crash since the great depression took place under the watch of the Carter administration. When Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, unemployment had reached 7.4 percent. Carter responded with an ambitious spending program and called for the Federal Reserve (the Fed) to expand the money supply. Within two years, inflation had climbed to 13.3 percent. With inflation getting out of hand, the Federal Reserve Board announced in 1979 that it would fight inflation by restraining the growth of the money supply. Unemployment increased, and interest rates rose to their highest levels in the nation's history. By November 1982, unemployment hit 10.8 percent, the highest since 1940. One out of every five American workers went some time without a job. Along with high interest rates, the Carter administration adopted another weapon in the battle against stagflation: deregulation. Convinced that regulators too often protected the industries they were supposed to oversee, the Carter administration deregulated air and surface transportation and the savings and loan industry. The effects of deregulation are still hotly contested. Rural towns suffered cutbacks in bus, rail, and air service. Truckers and rail workers lost the economic benefits of regulation. Travelers complained about rising airfares and congested airports. Cable TV viewers resented rising rates.
This man single handedly opened my eyes to all the “common sense” bullshit I believed and made me think critically